El International Film Festival of Catalonia will be opening its 40th edition with The Orphanage, by J. A. Bayona, produced by Guillermo del Toro.

Sitges 07 will be an important showcase for Spanish fantasy productions, represented by movies like Rec, by Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza; Timecrimes, by Nacho Vigalondo; El Rey de la Montaña, by Gonzalo López-Gallego; Los Justos, by Manuel Carballo, or the animated film Nocturna, by Adrià García and Víctor Maldonado, among others.

In addition, the Official FANTÀSTIC Selection will include some of the season’s most awaited motion pictures like I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK, by Park Chan-wook; The Fall, by Tarsem Singh, or Teeth, de Mitchell Lichtenstein (one of the big winners at the past Sundance Festival).

PREMIERE, an Official Category dedicated to out-of-competition fantasy genre films, will include Butterfly on a Wheel, by Mike Barker, a powerful horror thriller starring Pierce Brosnam, accompanied by Gerard Butler and Maria Bello.

Two of the Festival’s most extreme proposals are European films: the Irish Waz, by Tom Shankland, starring Stellan Skarsgård and Selma Blair, and À l’intérieur, by Alexandre Bustillo and Julian Maury, screened at the past International Critics’ Week in Cannes and considered to be one of the bloodiest movies in recent French cinema.

Another of the Festival’s big films will be 1408, the latest screen version of a Stephen King novel. Starring John Cusack and directed by Mikael Håfström (nominated for an Academy Award in 2003 for Best Foreign Motion Picture with Ondskan – Evil), 1408 has been described by critics as this year’s scariest ghost movie.

The Festival will be dedicating a retrospective to American Gothic, North American horror movies from the 70’s and 80’s (in collaboration with the San Sebastian Horror And Fantasy Festival), with the attendance of one of the main representatives of this school, director George A. Romero (creator of the classic Night of the Living Dead), who will receive the Time Machine Award.
In this cycle we will recover two films by the recently deceased Bob Clark and Dan Curtis, which are Dead of Night and House of Dark Shadows, as well as genre classics as important as Last House on the Left, by Wes Craven, or The Other, by Robert Mulligan.

ANIMA’T will open with the Japanese Anime film Tekkonkinkreet, by Michael Arias, and NOVES VISIONS will open with Zoo (an experimental documentary by Robinson Devor revolving around the controversial subject of zoophilia, a film screened at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight) and will include other productions following in the line of auteur films, like Mr. Lonely, by Harmony Korine, and exploring the field of faux documentaries with Nos Amis les Terriens, by Bernard Werber.
Gun Ghung (Eye in the sky), by Nai-Hoi Yau, produced by Johnnie To, will be opening the ORIENT EXPRESS category.

The NOVA AUTORIA section continues to support new creators, with the sponsorship of the SGAE (General Society of Authors and Publishers); SEVEN CHANCES will be made up of seven proposals by critics, and EUROPA IMAGINÀRIA will travel through the universe of premonitions and future cities with films like Metropolis, by Fritz Lang, or Playtime, by Jacques Tati.

BRIGADOON will pay tribute to Italian director Enzo G. Castellari, creator of movies like Inglorious Bastards or The Bronx Warriors. In addition to the usual sections, we will be dedicating a cycle to visionary director Damon Foster and there will be exclusive premieres for manga fans.

CATALAN FOCUS will be changing its focus and will be made up of both films that are a part of the Festival’s official program as well as retrospectives dedicated to classics and figures from the Catalan imaginary genre.

Catalan Films & TV, in addition to supporting the presence of the Catalan industry through the Catalan Focus section, will organize three main events: the yearly meeting of all European regions for audiovisual development, revolving around the Cine Regio platform; the holding of Catalan cinema day and the international co-production meetings & talent campus (from October 3 to 5 there will be a series of conferences bringing together producers, distributors, filmmakers and people in charge of European television stations with representatives of the Catalan industry).

The Carnet Jove Jury, which is presently carrying out its selection process, organized along with the Catalonian Autonomous Government’s General Youth Department, once again this year will be giving the Award to the Best Motion Picture in the Fantàstic and Midnight X-Treme categories. The deadline for running as a candidate is July 15l (www.carnetjove.cat).

The image of this year’s Festival is dedicated to the 25th anniversary of Blade Runner. Visiting Sitges will be two of the people responsible for the visual genius of Ridley Scott’s movie, Syd Mead (one of the most important production designers in fantasy film) and Douglas Trumbull (in charge of visual and photographic effects).